SurLaLune Fairy Tales

If you have fairy tale or folklore related things you'd like to share, please send them to me through my website email, heidi at surlalunefairytales dot com. Read more about fairy tales at SurLaLune Fairy Tales.

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Monday, October 5, 2009

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on DVD & Blu-Ray

For a limited time, order one of the Snow White Blu-ray sets on Amazon.com, then use promotion code snowhite at checkout to receive a $10 instant discount. This makes the set $14.99 instead of $24.99. I don't know the expiration date on this but probably soon, very soon.

The one that started it all, at least for Disney, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is released again tomorrow on DVD and for the first time on Blu-ray, newly remastered with new extras.

This is not really news to anyone with any exposure to the medio--and it's rather frustrating in the world of "how many copies of any one movie does a person need?" (also called double-dipping by studios). So as you debate whether or not to buy another copy or one at all if you don't own it, I have links with reviews and one especially great article about the history of the film. Of course, this is the first Blu-ray edition for tech junkies.

First, I'm first to admit that Disney's Snow White is my least favorite of the Disney movies, partially because I've never been a fan of the original tale and partially because of personal annoyances with the film. And yet, I agree that it is an important part of film history and there are things I do enjoy, especially the dwarfs. And, no, this isn't about Disney bashing which I mostly refrain from. I enjoy the Disney movies for what they are and appreciate that they have kept fairy tales in the public consciousness. I don't like the way they dominate over all other versions, but that's the nature of a movie-watching public versus a reading one.

Walt Disney managed very early in the process to give a true believability - believable personality to the seven dwarfs which is the essence of Disney's art animation, personality. Can you tell me about that aspect of the creation of the seven dwarfs? So...the question is about the personality of the dwarfs and how that shaped the characters.

Yes, that was really determined by the name to start with. And in those story notes that I've read, and there's just - I can't believe how many hours the story men and artists sat around talking about well how would Dopey respond, how would Grumpy respond, how would they sit down, how would they move, how would they get up. All of those things were a matter of asking 'how would somebody who was sleepy for example get up from a chair or sit in a chair waiting for conversation to happen?' So they took a lot of the characteristics from the names and then they worked out how they felt that character would respond. And depending on who was talking, if it was for example Bill Tytla, one of the greatest animators who ever worked at the company, he would say 'well what was the character thinking?' ...and that will tell us what he's working on. If it was a technical cameraman, he would be talking about '...what does a sleepy character do?' So, they came at it with different angles but the whole thing was that the name helped define how the personality was developed. And without those individual personalities, the film just would not have been as charming.

And just to keep it more interesting, there are four different releases to choose from, all links go to Amazon:

2 comments:

I have a promo DVD that was sent for the first DVD release of Snow White. I think it was because I took advantage of one of their buy 3 get one free offers. It has a sampling of the DVD, mainly focusing on the bonus material.

Wow! It's truly fascinating to see how different fairy tales (and even different versions of the same tale) affect people in such varied ways.

You mentioned that Disney's Snow White is your least favorite of the Disney movies and that you've never been a fan of the original tale.

It's just the opposite for me. The Snow White tale (and especially Disney's version) seems to affect me on some deep archetypal level like no other fairy tale does. But that is of course because it's message matches up with something in my own life's experiences, my own inner psyche.

A fan of another tale, say Beauty and the Beast, would connect with different archetypal messages.

Anyway, it all makes for fascinating topics of conversation. Love your blog. Keep up the great posts!